Advertise on podcast: Stories of Special Forces Operators

In 1976, more than 100 hostages were being held thousands of miles from Israel at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport. Israeli planners faced extraordinary problems involving distance, intelligence, surprise, transportation and the possibility that the hostages could be killed before rescuers reached them. The resulting raid became one of history’s most studied long-range hostage-rescue operations.

In this episode, Green Beret veteran Rod Graham sits down to talk through his time in Army Special Forces and what came after leaving that world behind. He shares firsthand insight into the training, mindset, and demands of operating in an elite combat unit. The conversation moves into how that experience shaped his path once the uniform came off, and what the transition out of special operations actually looks like. It's a candid, personal account from someone who lived that world from the inside.

For years, the second-most-wanted man in the Western Hemisphere ran a rebel state from inside the Amazon, protected by two borders and a government that looked the other way. Colombian intelligence spent months building a picture of his movements, his habits, and the camp he thought was untouchable. This is the story of how they found him.

Imagery released Sept. 17 showed Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, preparing an explosive payload on a small drone during training on Aug. 14. Officials said the event tested the capabilities and effects of explosive-ordnance small attack drones flown with first-person-view feeds. Technical details were withheld for operational security. The release fits a wider Army special operations push to treat low-cost drones as lethal tools, not just surveillance sensors.

After an F-15E Strike Eagle nicknamed “Dude 44” was shot down over Iran in April 2026, the weapons systems officer known as “Bravo” spent roughly 50 hours injured in the Zagros Mountains before rescue. CENTCOM later said about 92 U.S. troops operated on Iranian soil for the recovery — including Air Force pararescue and elements of SEAL Team 6, supported by MC-130s and 160th SOAR MH-6 Little Birds. In a September 2026 *60 Minutes* interview, Bravo publicly described the shootdown, the wait, and the moment PJs reached him on a ridgeline.

In this conversation, we sit down with Claudio Spinelli, a veteran of Italy's special forces community, for an inside look at the world of elite military operations. He walks us through the mindset, training, and demands that come with serving in some of Italy's most selective combat units. The conversation covers what drew him to that path and the realities of operating at the highest level of military readiness. It's a rare, candid window into a side of special operations rarely heard outside Italy.

In May 2026, the United States Coast Guard announced the creation of a new Special Missions Command — a major restructuring designed to unify elite maritime units responsible for counterterrorism, drug interdiction, port security, disaster response, and high-risk operations. In this episode, we examine why the Coast Guard believes future threats will increasingly emerge through oceans, ports, shipping lanes, and gray-zone maritime conflict. Through the lens of special operations, geopolitical strategy, and modern asymmetric warfare, we explore how this new command may transform America’s maritime security posture for decades to come.

Act of Valor put active-duty SEALs and SWCC crews in front of the camera and filmed live-fire training as if it were the mission. The CQB flow and small-boat work look like the Teams because, in a lot of those frames, they are the Teams. This is what survived Naval Special Warfare’s TTP review—and what the script still forced through.

late August, Green Berets put Polish special forces through a new U.S. exercise at Hohenfels: cross a simulated front, move about sixty miles, and hit a target with a drone while the “enemy” hunts them with more than a hundred aircraft. It is the first time a NATO ally has run the scenario. The story is not that drones exist. It is that NATO is finally training as if the sky is an opponent.

mid-August, 10th Special Forces Group inserted men and ATVs by Chinook onto St. Lawrence Island as part of Operation Polar Dagger 2026. The exercise was not a photo op. It was a rehearsal for putting a mobile special-operations presence into the Bering Strait with almost no infrastructure, within sight of Russian territory, and it tells you more about what U.S. special forces are being rebuilt to do than another raid anecdote ever will.

Carlos sits down with Bob "The Ninja" Porras for a wide-ranging look back at a career spent in the world of Delta Force and "The Unit." The conversation covers what it actually takes to make it through selection, the mindset required to operate at the highest level of special operations, and the lessons carried forward after the uniform comes off. It's a rare, candid window into the culture and psychology behind America's most elite units.

Every insignia is a confession dressed up as a decoration. This one was built from an eagle, a pistol, an anchor, and a god’s weapon, and it still gets pulled off a man’s chest when he stops earning it. Here is where the trident actually came from and why the story behind it matters more than the metal.

On February 12, 2008, Hezbollah’s chief of international operations, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria, in an operation widely attributed to a joint effort between Israel’s Mossad and the CIA. This episode traces Mughniyeh’s decades-long career as one of the most wanted militants in the world, the years-long surveillance campaign that located him, and the technical details of the operation as later reported by journalists and former officials. We examine the intelligence tradecraft involved, the geopolitical fallout across the Middle East, and why this case remains one of the most consequential targeted killings in modern intelligence history.

May 8, 1987, the British Army’s Special Air Service laid a deadly ambush for an IRA active service unit attacking Loughgall RUC station in County Armagh, resulting in the single greatest loss of life the Provisional IRA suffered in one incident during the Troubles. This episode breaks down the intelligence operation, the assault itself, and the enduring controversy over whether the SAS operated under a shoot-to-kill policy. We examine the tactical, political, and human dimensions of one of the most consequential counter-terrorism operations in modern British history.

July 2003, a joint task force built around Delta Force operators and the 101st Airborne converged on a villa in Mosul where Saddam Hussein’s two sons had been hiding since the fall of Baghdad. What followed was a six-hour gunfight against a fortified position that ended with both men dead and one of the most wanted target sets of the entire war eliminated. This episode breaks down the intelligence tip that started it, the assault that went sideways fast, and what this operation teaches about the brutal math of urban direct action.